Ngalakgan celebrate end to 30-year wait for land

Traditional Owners celebrate the title handback with David Daniels (centre) while Daryl Williams (at rear) and Galarrwuy Yunpingu (right) look on

The Ngalakgan people's 30-year wait for the return of traditional lands finally ended on 17 May when they participated in a ceremony for the handback of Urapunga Station in the Top End's Gulf Country, which was also attended by Federal Attorney General Daryl Williams.

It's a great day, a proud day for the Ngalakgan.

Traditional Owners began pressing for the return of their land in the 1970s, and now, after more than 30 years of patience, it's finally come back to them.

The Ngalakgan have ancient connections to their land.

The arrival of Europeans in the early 1870s failed to diminish these connections and they have continued to retain their cultural links and ceremonies.

Like so many others, the Ngalakgan faced a variety of obstacles in the fight for their country, particularly from the former NT Government.

Northern Land Council Chairman, Galarrwuy Yunupingu

Depsite the obvious joy in having his homeland back in his clan's possession, Traditional Owner David Daniels couldn't help but reflect on the price his people paid for its return.

It's good that we have this land back, we have been fighting for a long time for this land. I am sorry that so many of the old people who started this fight have passed away.

Ludwig Leichhardt was the first European explorer to travel through the region in 1845, naming the Roper River after his assistant John Roper.

A permanent European presence in the region dates from the 1870s, when the Roper River Supply Depot was established.

The name Urapunga is thought to be the Ngalakgan name for the general Roper Bar region and lived on when Paddy's Lagoon Station came to be called Urapunga Station in the early 20th Century.

Traditional Owners' links to the station were maintained right through the pastoral era due to the employment of local Aboriginal people as stockmen, housekeepers and police trackers as well as the residence of their families on the station.

However, the 1965 Equal Pay decision for NT cattle station workers saw the numbers of Indigenous workers at Urapunga severely reduced and the wholesale movement of Aboriginal people off the Urapunga pastoral lands.

Traditional Owners began pressing for land of their own in the Roper River area in the early 1970s. But it was only the provision of financial assistance from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) that finally allowed the Northern Land Council to purchase Urapunga in 1996.

The conversion to freehold title via the land claim process now provides surety for traditional owners, as the land can never be removed from their possession.

The benefits of conversion to inalienable freehold title now provide the Ngalakgan with a host of options.

Galarrwuy Yunupingu

Despite the station's neglected state at the time of its initial purchase by the NLC, it mattered little to the Ngalakgan.

Their focus now is on securing a strong economic outlook for future generations and an NLC-backed assessment process is already well underway to identify appropriate opportunities, which could include tourism, buffalo safari hunting and pastoral operations.